I’m lying back on the table in a freezing, gray room. The lights are dim as the tech had just completed my ultrasound before exiting. My arms are stretched high in the air so I can read the e-mails I’m responding to from the office on my cell phone, and I’m considering my calendar of to-do’s over the next few days. “If I schedule the finance meeting for 9, then I’ll be able to take the 11 a.m. conference call and still make lunch with the IT department.” This was my day and every day before it until now. The doctor comes in, followed by a group of four other women. One places a hand on my thigh, the other nurse her hand on my shoulder, and there are two vague figures in the background. Immediately, I thought this must be a team of interns learning to read ultrasounds while working on their bedside manner.
Then the doctor says, “Ma’am, I believe you have breast cancer.”
Do you know of any moment in your life when you hear a few words, and though you know their sounds, the vowels, the consonants, you still can’t seem to make them out because they shock your system once they hit your ears?
Well, multiply that by a hundred, and you’ll be close to understanding what it felt like at that very moment for me. “Is she talking to me? Poor thing…maybe she walked into the wrong room. The lights are dim, and this would be an understandable mistake”, I thought. I forgave her immediately, quickly snapped out of the trance, and focused on pressing send on the e-mail I had just completed.
She repeated it.
Instead of pointing to gray and white matter on the screen, she leaned over me and whispered. Like you would to a child who may be frightened, and you’re showing your motherly concern…I’m here for you. She didn’t say that, but her actions spoke for her. At that moment, I knew there wasn’t a wrong room scenario, and yes, she was directing her comments towards me. And the ladies who found it okay to reach out and pat me weren’t in training. The tech, the breast care coordinator, and two other nurses were clearly on standby to support me if needed.
I sat up slowly, I think, and listened as she told me how I needed to be back in the morning for a biopsy. She explained that she felt comfortable telling me it was cancer before those results, as she had been doing this for numerous years and knew cancer when she saw it.
I wish I did. I wish I knew when I saw it.
After putting my clothes on and walking out into an empty waiting area with no receptionist operating the desk, cell phone still in hand, I realized the office was closed and that I’d been the last patient for the day. A sunny day had turned into cloudy skies and rain as I drove out of the parking garage.
At that very moment…my NORMAL washed away before my eyes.
Q&A: Do you have a time when things seem to have been going well and a break happened?
First Shave, Benivia Lee, 2010
Thank you for sharing this! So vulnerable. I know the feeling of being caught up in daily life, especially work and then your world comes to a halt and your perspective on everything shifts. I look forward to reading more. Lovely pic!
This resonates. What a shock to the body and spirit. I am so glad that you are a survivor.